China Is Experimenting with Remote Controlled Tanks

The Chinese Army—officially known as the People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces—is experimenting with controlling tanks remotely. Beijing’s state television service showed off the tanks during a news segment, stating the next step is to control them on the battlefield using artificial intelligence.

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According to the state-run television network, the PLAGF is experimenting with turning older Type 59 tanks into remote-controlled drones. As shown in a short video that was uploaded to Twitter, tank is controlled by a soldier manning a console. The operator controls the tank with a video game-like steering wheel. The operator has two LCD screens to look at, one likely showing the driver’s eye view while the other is probably boresighted to the tank barrel. A pair of antennas are visible mounted on the top of the tank turret.

The tank used in the experiments is an old Type 59 medium tank. Originally designed by the Soviet Union in the closing days of World War II, the Type 59 is a licensed copy of the Soviet tank and was the first generation of tank domestically produced in China. With a basic design more than seventy years old, the Type 59 is very obsolete and is replaced in front-line Chinese service by the newer, third-generation Type 99 tank. The Type 59 has either a Soviet-designed 100-millimeter main gun or 105-millimeter gun once widely used by NATO, including on older versions of the U.S. M-1 Abrams and M-60 tanks.

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China has unknown thousands of Type 59s sitting in warehouses, waiting to be scrapped. The tanks' dated, analog-era transmission and control systems make them fairly easy to convert to remote controlled vehicles. A robotic Type 59 actually looks easier to drive from the outside, where the control console has a regular steering wheel and digital controls, instead of the T-shaped steering bar and manual transmission inside the tank.

Chinese Type 59 tanks with reactive armor.

China.mil

Liu Qingshan, the chief editor of Tank and Armored Vehicle magazine, told China’s Global Times newspaper, "A large number of due-to-retire Type 59 tanks can be converted into unmanned vehicles if equipped with artificial intelligence.” Vehicles like the Type 59 could be modified to carry more modern anti-tank and anti-personnel weapons and sent on dangerous missions deemed too risky to expose manned crews. If one of them is blown up or lost, it’s not a big deal.

The U.S. Army is also testing robotic vehicle concepts and is already in the artificial intelligence stage, with the Wingman vehicle currently undergoing testing. Wingman is an autonomous Humvee designed to operate alongside other mechanized forces, with a mounted, remotely-operated machine gun controlled by a human operator.

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